I shook ‘no’ at her. “It wouldn’t be fair to him to tell you. I’ve probably already said more to you than he would like me to say.”
She nodded. “Okay. But I’ll just say this—if you’re to the point of protecting his feelings when he’s not here, and hedging around your friends, I’d say you have a better idea of the nature of your relationship, or your intentions, than you’re letting on.”
Sinking back and closing my eyes, I said, “Lizzy, don’t be hurtful. He’s my friend—our friend—first and foremost so if I won’t betray his confidences you should take it as a good sign of the kind of friend I am, not some indication of a plot we’ve cooked up. I’ve admitted there’s something, maybe, in the wind between us. And that I’m trying to keep it from Wren for now. What am I supposed to do, go to her and say, hey, I may be interested and he may be interested in me but neither of us knows for sure so I’ll fill you in later? For all we know, what he wants to tell me tonight is he thinks I’m sweet but he’s more inclined towards her and am I terribly disappointed?”
I flushed a little as I said it; before, I hadn’t realized I was half-fearing he would say something like that. But Lizzy didn’t seem to particularly notice—she was getting up and making for the door.
“Okay, Ash, I’ll try to just stay out of it. I suppose I’m just a bit curious, and worried for Wren’s sake.”
“I’m not setting out to hurt her.”
“I know.” She stood by the door. “Are you headed over there now?”
“No. I’m not planning to.” Not definitely.
With a hug she said, “You’re a good girl, Ashlyn. You please yourself, now, you’ve had a rough enough day without my meddling.”
I laughed. “You’re a good girl yourself, Lizzy. Thanks. See you tomorrow.”
“See yas.” She left.
The person I most needed to talk to was Gran. It was always Gran—even when I had to weep out my fears about Bernadette’s comparative lack of interest in me, it was to Gran I talked. She taught me about the Bernadette who I, being her daughter, couldn’t see. But I couldn’t return the favor, try as I might. Not that Gran was a know-it-all, just that she perceived the whole dynamic between myself and my mother. I had a tendency to misappropriate all of our difficulties to my own personal failings, where Gran saw them in a much more complex light. Bernadette had always been a tomboy, had always and forever been Pappa’s girl. She loved Gran, but wasn’t the kind of daughter who was dependent upon her mom. And I, by a long shot, had never been a tomboy. Bernadette tried, but couldn’t share my pride in the things I was good at—my drawing, my sewing, even my nascent cooking skills. And I never could get interested in playing ball with her and Frank and Zach, or their heated political and social debates, and I hated camping. We were just coming at each other from the wrong angles. But with Gran’s help, I learned to not blame myself for the lack of a bridge across the divides.
So I’ve always and forever been Gran’s girl. The one she’d never truly had, with her two boys and her tomboy. She named me. Held me in my first hours, the first ones in which I didn’t wail, and called me her ‘vision of babyness’ and gave me the American version of the Irish for vision. Bernadette relinquished me to her at an early age, which to Bernadette was the happy medium between loving me but not ‘being on the same wavelength’ as me, as she often put it. In many ways, it was.
But I still missed my mommy at times.
And now would be a very good time for me to have my mommy. I needed someone to tell me if I should tell Gran about Pappa. I needed someone to tell me if I should believe it was true, if I should somehow verify it first, if it would break her heart or if she’d probably known for years but kept it secret.
But Bernadette was still her daddy’s girl. We were all crushed when he’d died, back when I was sixteen. But for Bernadette, the grief stopped with her. Zach and my uncles and I were devastated at losing Pappa, but also concerned for Gran and how she would manage to live on her own for the first time in her life. I spent days sitting, her arthritic hands in mine, talking about their life together. Talking about how they met, and the mistakes they made when they first bought the farm, and the stories about two trouble-prone giraffes Pappa spun for his children. But Bernadette didn’t even commiserate with Gran, at least not that I saw, and I woulda seen.
So here I was again in my life, wanting my mother, and realizing again the mother I had was not the mother I needed. Gran, who had such insight into people and the knack of delving right to the heart of a problem, was who I needed to talk to. I’d never had much call to talk to her about her problems, though. And I wasn’t eager to start with this.
I sighed and stood and stretched.
It was full dark out. I figured I could safely wash my dishes without running into anyone, so I headed to the Main House. The computer room was deserted, so I went online. Some nice seller feedback from my online store. A cheerful note from Zach, with more hints about his upbeat mindset. It must be a woman—he wouldn’t bother dropping hints about anything else. Also, the e-invite to Bernadette’s birthday party, which credited me as a co-host. Sweet Zach, though Bernadette and Frank probably wouldn’t be any more likely to thank me for it all because of it.
I surfed around for an online phone directory for Dublin. There were eighty-four M O’Connors, three Matts, and a Matthew. Hardly surprising, or helpful. For confirmation of Agnes’ story, if that’s what I needed, I’d have to talk to this purported Matthew O’Connor, or his daughters (my half-cousins?), or get ahold of birth and marriage certificates somehow. I wondered which would be easier, logistically and emotionally.
When the door opened, I flinched.
“You’re going out of your way to avoid me, aren’t you?”
Caleb sounded lighthearted, but his eyes didn’t join in on the smile as he sat in the revolving chair at the next CPU. “What’s up?”
I gestured at the screen. “Trying to decide whether to break my Gran’s heart or not.”
“Huh?” He leaned in to read the monitor. “How exactly?”
“Never mind. Just had some strange news from the old country today, and I don’t know what to do with it.”
Sitting back, he asked, “Is that why you’re not coming to see me?”
God he looked gorgeous. Khaki button-down with those black jeans, hair brushed back, just a hint of after-shave. I had a little private shiver wondering if I merited such careful grooming. Less glum now, I reached for his hand.
“I’m sorry. I should have come by to explain to you—it’s just such a long story, and it’s—it’s family. Personal, you know? I’d tell you everything if it was just to do with me, but it’s a bit much to be dragging you anywhere near this mess with my family.”
He squeezed my fingers, then stroked the back of my hand with his thumb a while before he answered. “Don’t you trust me?”
I squeezed back, then took my hand back to shut down the computer. “Yes, I trust you. It’s not that. It’s just complex and I don’t know where to go with it and I know you have other things on your mind besides my grandparents.”
“Okay, don’t get mad.”
“I’m not mad.” He had walked almost to the door. “Caleb. I’m not mad, relax. I’m confused and I’m stressed and,” I sighed, “on top of that, if I come to you and talk about this, it’s presuming,” I stopped and crossed the room to him. “It’s presuming you want to be in the position of hearing me out and helping me with my confidences, and until I’m a little clearer about what’s happening here I don’t want to presume anything.”
He stared down at me, started to say something but stopped, and took my hands again. “Ashlyn.”
“Yeah?”
His lips barely moved but his eyes broke out in crinkles. Crow’s feet my hiney, Gran, these were something else. “Can I presume something?”
I closed my eyes and nodded.
As he wrapped his arms around me I looked up at him and smiled. A brief smile, because withi
n seconds my mouth, and mind, were more happily engaged than they had been in quite some time.
Chapter 9
Reluctantly, I stepped back. “This—we should stop.”
He looked pained.
“No, just—not in here. Let’s go talk, okay?”
And he gave me his crinkly smile, which had gained the ability to send a blush up my core. I stroked his smooth cheek, and he kissed my palm, then held it as he led the way out of the Main House.
“Your place or mine?”
“Yours,” I answered quickly, then added, “I seem to get a lot of unexpected visitors.”
He nodded and we turned south along the little road, the crunching of the shale and a horny bullfrog the only sounds until we reached his cabin.
“Okay,” I said, taking the glass of water and scooching a bit closer into him as he sat down, “I think we have a lot to talk about.”
“Can’t we postpone a little bit?”
I had to seriously batten down my hatches as I shook my head. “I’d love to. But I think not. You could easily take advantage of my state of confusion tonight, and I think I’d like that very much,” I ran my cheekbone along the soft cotton of his shirt, aware of the rise and fall of his chest within it, “very much indeed. But I need to deal with things before I go making them much more complex.”
He laughed and swept my hair back from my forehead. “You are definitely off your rocker, Ashlyn May. And I don’t believe you have the soul of an artist, either. A proper artist would let herself be swept away by passion.”
“Now you’re hitting below the belt. Be good,” I stopped him from tugging at my belt loop, “and talk to me or say good night.”
With an exaggerated sigh, Caleb heaved himself up to sit on the desk chair. “I’ll be good.”
It felt great just to look at him, watch his body move, meet his gaze without wondering what he was thinking about what I was thinking. The stranglehold the tension had on my forehead eased for the first time since lunch.
“So, what do you want to talk about?”
I suddenly felt self-conscious, and arranged myself so I was sitting with my legs folded under, tucking myself as deeply into the sofa cushions as I could go. The subtly different layout of his cabin made me slightly off-kilter. I didn’t own the space the way I did ValeSong, and had to blink a couple of times with the oddness of sitting on an identical sofa but speaking towards the chair now on my left.
I refocused on Caleb. “Okay, starting at the beginning of this long bizarre day, tell me what you were talking about in the kitchen this morning, about Wren.”
“Great, you would start with that.”
“It’s easier for me.” I sipped the water. “Although it presents a whole range of new problems I’d rather not face.”
“So she does like me, then?”
“We all like you, Caleb.”
“No.” Smiling. “She’s—she’s had ideas about being the one I kiss in the computer room, instead of you?”
“I didn’t realize the computer room was integral to your plan. You can take this Zeke and Ned thing too far, you know.”
“You’re just glad I have problems and concerns of my own now. Answer the question.”
I sighed. “I wasn’t going to tell you this earlier today, but given the circumstances. Yes, Wren has been interested in you from day one, and has been asking Lizzy and I advice about what to do since, well, since day two.”
“Is that why Zach wanted her along at dinner?”
I frowned my eyebrows at him. “Yeah, of course. What did you think?”
“I thought Zach was into her. I mean, she’s kinda his type, isn’t she, and then he kept on asking her all kinds of stuff about her work and her life—he barely talked to either of us at all. I was sure he was into her.”
I shook my head and sat forward. “No, he was trying to keep the focus on her so you’d realize how great she was and pursue her.”
“God, and there I was, thinking—isn’t this great, Zach’ll come up here and pretend he wants to see Ash and me and he’ll really want to be with Wren, and I’ll have all this time with Ash practically all to myself.”
I suppressed a grin. “You thought that?”
“Yeah! I couldn’t believe my luck when we were made food partners, and then when I knew your brother ....”
“It was like destiny, baby.”
“Stop making fun of me.”
“Don’t sulk.”
“I’m not sulking.”
I moved to his lap and traced his lower lip. “What’s this, then?”
His arms came around my back. “Why don’t you come a little closer and find out?”
I did.
“You are just no good at talking,” I accused, sitting up and moving a cushion away from him. We had made it back onto the sofa.
“Mmnh.”
“I mean it.”
“I know.”
“I think you’re only interested in one thing.”
He sat straight and faced me. “Ash, no. That’s not true.” His eyes locked onto mine. “I swear. It’s not.”
Running my fingertips through his wavy hair, I said, “I believe you.”
“Do you? Honestly? Because I know I’m being a pig and you were so upset, you weren’t even going to come over here and I’ve just been wishing I could kiss you some more.”
I bit my swollen lips. “I honestly do believe you. But maybe I should get going. I mean, I just want to kiss you, too, but I also need to sort all of this out, and I’m just taking any excuse to avoid it.”
All he did was look at me, with a shadow passing across his eyes.
“You’re not just any excuse, Caleb.”
“We’ve only known each other two weeks.”
I sighed. “And we’re only here six more weeks, and Wren is here, too, and Lizzy is already mad at me because of you, and then there’s all this stuff with Gran.”
“Which I haven’t even asked you about.” He groaned. “I’m such a pig.”
“No, you’re not.”
“You’ll tell me if you think I am?”
“Oh, I’ll tell you all right.”
“Don’t laugh at me,” he warned.
“Man, you sulk easier than any guy I’ve ever met.”
He sank back against the sofa and wrapped his arm around me. “I’ll stop, I promise.”
“Okay, then.” I leaned into him. “Going back to Wren.”
“You’re relentless.”
“You’ll live.” I kissed his knuckles. “So, have the two of you talked about it at all?”
He shook his head. “I just, I don’t know, picked up a vibe?”
“Yeah.”
“So?”
“I don’t know. It’s not much good telling her I didn’t want for this to happen.”
“You didn’t?”
“Hey, relax. I do. I want it—this—whatever. You know what I’m saying. I’m glad.”
“But it hadn’t been your intention?”
I dismissed that first twitch of interest before I knew any dynamics, that first day. “No—she told me from the start she wanted you, and I wasn’t looking to hook up with anyone, so I never thought about it. Not until recently, anyway.”
“Every morning when I knocked on your door I had to stop myself from going in to wake you with a kiss.”
I kissed him then, to make up for it. And then again, for good measure.
“Do you think she’ll be angry at you? Or me?”
“Not at you. Hurt, maybe, I don’t know, pissed off. At me, she’ll probably be angry.” I sighed. “I’ll have to talk to her before Lizzy spills it.”
“She wouldn’t, would she?”
“She’s a wretched gossip.”
“True.” She loved to regale us with slanderous tales about Theo’s visits to Angelica’s cabin. “Does she know, then? What could she know?”
“She noticed a few things. She doesn’t know this.”
“So, if we j
ust, I don’t know—keep a low profile?”
I nodded. “At least until I talk to Wren.” I looked at him. “Why weren’t you interested in her, anyway? I mean, she’s gorgeous and all.”
“You’re fishing.”
“No. Really.”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I did think about it, I mean, once I’d kinda noticed her looking at me and all.”
“And?”
He shrugged again. “I guess, I just thought she was a little—a little too wild? Too uneven, in a way.”
I rubbed my brow. “I’m not sure I get what you mean.”
“It could just be my perception. She laughs erratically, then goes quiet. Her pendulum’s off kilter. It’s not like she’s unbalanced, it’s just you’re so, you know, balanced.”
The last thing I felt was balanced. But it didn’t matter. The thing was, frankly, I wanted to make sure he wasn’t at all interested in Wren, so I wouldn’t feel guilty at having been chosen just from being in the right place at the wrong time. Of course, it was forty to one he wouldn’t have let on if he had been wavering between us, but I decided to take him at face anyway.
“So. What else did you want to tell me this morning?”
Shaking his head, he said, “That was it.”
“You said it was complicated.”
“Well, it was. Explaining it all would have been. But I don’t have to try and find out about her without telling you why, now. You know why.” He squeezed my shoulders. “But we can talk about all this later. Tell me what happened today?”
“I don’t know. It’s—it’s hard to explain.”
“Come on, Ash, give me a shot. I’m perceptive.”
“I know. I’m not doubting you. But you’re not family and it’s extremely personal and I don’t think I can even talk to Zach about it, so how could I talk to you?”
“Why not Zach?” He knew by now I told Zach pretty much everything.
“Because,” I sighed, “he’ll want me to talk to Bernadette and Frank first, instead of Gran. And Bernadette won’t hear anything against Pappa, any more than she would against Zach.”
“Okay,” he sat up. “So why do you have to tell any of them?”
Retreat to Love Page 11
